EA: The Human Story (2004)
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EA: The Human Story (2004)
1–10 of 156 posts
Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)
#2Needs a (2004).
Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)
#3EA perpetuates practices that hurt customers, too.
I used to unapologetically pirate video games and only within the past two years have I finally come full circle and begun purchasing games, both new titles and older ones I had played in the past but never paid for until now. Steam has been the tool of choice for this reconciliation process.
As a result, some of the hardships that paying customers encounter have become apparent to me only recently. I was aware, in a peripheral sense, that some singleplayer games required an Internet connection to run. But this never mattered to me because the pirates patch that stuff out.
Lo and behold, I'm sitting in a hotel last night trying to play Mass Effect Legendary Edition, and the thing refuses to function because I'm not connected to the Internet. I was astounded. This has never happened to me before. Why am I subject to this as a customer? If I steal the game, I receive a product without this glaring defect (I believe the defect has a name: "Origin").
Missteps and antipatterns like this are rife within the games publishing industry so it's no surprise that employees are treated even worse than customers.
I must admit I do not understand the industry, but I don't see why competent studios like Blizzard/BioWare/Id could not simply self-publish their games. What exactly does EA add to the equation? Seems like it would not be a particularly monumental task to cut them out.
Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)
#4EA perpetuates practices that hurt customers, too. I used to unapologetically pirate video games and only within the past two years have I finally come full circle and begun purchasing games, both new titles and older ones I had played in the past but never paid for until now. Steam has been the tool of choice for this reconciliation process. As a result, some of the hardships that paying customers encounter have bec…
This is just a side effect of hypercapitalism at play. Aspects of capitalism aren't bad, but when capitalism is the single biggest driving force of your society, things like this are bound to happen, because the endgame that gets rammed down everyone's throat is "making money is your life's purpose".
These types of things have happened across how many industries at this point, historically? Practically all of them.
Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)
#5Needs a (2004).
I wondered why she was referencing games such as Madden 2005
Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)
#6Thought this was about Effective Altruism to start with! Would have been nice if this called out that it was from '04
Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)
#7Needs a (2004).
I thought the decade-plus age would be obvious from the fact that it's a LiveJournal entry. :)
Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)
#8This was while John Riccitiello was running EA. I was there at the time and it was crazy how many people were being driven so hard. You may recognize his name now from the recent Unity/malware merger news, or maybe from calling developers who don’t extract maximum value through microtransactions “fucking idiots.”
Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)
#9EA perpetuates practices that hurt customers, too. I used to unapologetically pirate video games and only within the past two years have I finally come full circle and begun purchasing games, both new titles and older ones I had played in the past but never paid for until now. Steam has been the tool of choice for this reconciliation process. As a result, some of the hardships that paying customers encounter have bec…
> I must admit I do not understand the industry, but I don't see why competent studios like Blizzard/BioWare/Id could not simply self-publish their games. What exactly does EA add to the equation? Seems like it would not be a particularly monumental task to cut them out.
I don’t know what it’s like at all for those larger studios, but for smaller studios EA will basically give all this infrastructure to you for free or even pay you to use it if you become a timed exclusive on their platform. I believe they are effectively in the market for buying origin installs to compete with steam.
Re: EA: The Human Story (2004)
#10This was while John Riccitiello was running EA. I was there at the time and it was crazy how many people were being driven so hard. You may recognize his name now from the recent Unity/malware merger news, or maybe from calling developers who don’t extract maximum value through microtransactions “fucking idiots.”
Yup, this ties into the recent happenings with Unity and ironSource.